Authors on the Outskirts: Writing Projects and (Sub)urban Space in Contemporary French Literature

This article analyzes the relationship between contemporary literature and the current development of the city in the French context. It first outlines the main aspects of the crisis of the city, or “la question urbaine,” and focuses then on specific responses by four writers, François Maspéro, Jean Rolin, Georges Perec, and Jacques Jouet, to the challenge the city poses for literary representation. Given that these responses pertain both to the techniques of literary representation and to cultural interpretations of space, the analysis is carried out at the level of both literary semiotics and cultural semiotics. In the end, the article relates the authors and texts discussed to works in other fields of arts, pointing out lines for future investigations.